Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Now Deletes Posts That Financially Endanger, Trick People (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: It's not just inciting violence, threats and hate speech that will get Facebook to remove posts by you or your least favorite troll. Endangering someone financially, not just physically, or tricking them to earn a profit are now also strictly prohibited. Facebook today spelled out its policy with more clarity in hopes of establishing a transparent set of rules it can point to when it enforces its policy in the future. "We do not, for example, allow content that could physically or financially endanger people, that intimidates people through hateful language, or that aims to profit by tricking people using Facebook," its VP of policy Richard Allen published today. Web searches show this is the first time Facebook has used that language regarding financial attacks.
Normalization of censorship - done by the big tech mega corp.
Stupid people deserve to be separated from their money. For example, star citizen backers.
So campaigning for <party> that will raise my taxes is forbidden. Awesome.
"We do not, for example, allow content that [...] aims to profit by tricking people using Facebook,"
That's our job, dammit!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...they sure do edit and moderate a lot of the content. Weird.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
ya, itâ(TM)s like the opposite of slashdot
And yet at the same time facebook sends out hundreds of thousands of emails a day to people to get them to join facebook (which itself financially endangers and tricks people).
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
That must mean that if it isn't deleted FB has determined that it doesn't financially endanger or trick people
No, really.
sell all FB shares for blocking their stock market ads.
Is Facebook against
1. Wall Street partners?
2. Las Vegas partners?
3. Federal Reserve partners?
4. U.S. Dollars?
"God bless America"
was invented by false and unknown prophet.
"America must bless Jesus, son of God and Mary"
...they sure do edit and moderate a lot of the content. Weird.
Not being a publisher does not mean "anything goes". Even old fashioned telephone companies did not have an anything goes and would take action against sufficiently vexatious users. To be clear: not being a publisher does not imply that users are allowed post arbitrarily bad stuff no matter how bad, nor does it imply that they must allow such things.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Some people are susceptible to "lifestyle" advertising, itching to personally enjoy a scenario they see played out in an image or other advertisement. Some of those people are financially illiterate or can't make good judgment about how well they can handle a monthly payment. The same ad may be only passingly interesting to a normal person, but be a "financially dangerous trick" to someone who processes it (and life) differently. That's not FB's problem to sort out.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I never thought I'd see the day when the Left likes a huge corporation buying up all the lawns in town and then banning lawn signs.
"Hey, it's private property after all!"
So, do they also delete ads that financially endanger people? Specifically, I'm talking about the ones that have fine print that subscribes you to a service that you can't stop by calling the so-called toll-free number to cancel (probably because they have 1000 people taking orders and one person servicing cancellations). The only way to stop being to get the credit card company involved? It's no wonder that none of these services take PayPal -- it's easy to stop the payments from the PayPal website, even if the company will not take your call.
Deserves to be tricked.
...they sure do edit and moderate a lot of the content. Weird.
That's a good point.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
This is some serious paternalism.
Those of you who like this - what happens when FB (and Google, etc. since they are all working together now) decide that stuff you are interested in is something they must protect the public against?
Or is my post to dangerous, and it might trick you into thinking? Best remove it ...
what about comcast ad's that say one price but hide lot's of added fees
It was never the responsibility of Ma Bell to deal with wire fraud. That was always the job of the government. It's not the role of private corporations to run petty fiefdoms as if they were Robber Barons.
As others have implied, it's quite strange that the same people who will screech "free speech" when discussing FCC regulations will completely gloss over (or even happily embrace) corporate censorship.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Is this going to result in removal of posts by televangelists asking for donations to help God save the donors?
Not only is the God they are peddling an illusion, but televangelists usually spend the money on their own pleasure and comfort instead of any missionary activities of their religion.
They are both useless to the donor and actively fraudulent in their own universe.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
If Facebook is promoting a certain candidate or party, then it can run afoul of campaign finance laws. If it is shown they are acting in a political manner, they open themselves up to being prosecuted for illegal contributions. If they are running ads, for the benefit of political entities it is clear cut that they are making in-kind contributions to the political entity. If they are suppressing one side of political speak it is less clear cut, but the same argument could be made. How much is exclusive advertising worth? The value in the commercial world is real. A bank could sign and exclusive contract with the local newspaper to be the only bank that runs ads in the newspaper. This generally requires significantly more money than a normal ad buy, since the newspaper is forgoing the opportunity to receive ads from competing banks.
Remember FOSTA-SESTA? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If politicians can run around and suddenly start holding site operators liable for one kind of content, how long until they start holding them liable for all types of damning content? Site operators might just be trying to get ahead of the curve, because of the giant can of worms that FOSTA-SESTA opened up.
If someone wants to cry about First Amendment violations, this is really the avenue you need to approach it from. This is the government forcing a proxy to censor speech by making that proxy liable for any criminal activity that speech perpetrates.
They want it both ways. "You can't blame us for the content, we're not a publisher" and "You can't blame us, look at all we're doing to solve the problem" Typical corporate CYA--claim all the arguments you can, even if they contradict each other.
...and stop hammering the product, uh, I mean "users", with ads.
"We do not, for example, allow content that could physically or financially endanger people ... or that aims to profit by tricking people using Facebook"
Fabtastic! Facebook will no longer clutter up its pages with ads.
"or that aims to profit by tricking people"
Wire fraud and postal fraud have been illegal for 70 years.
Big projection on the screeching there. Seems that you reckon if you screech loudly enough about screeching then people work think it isn't you.
I said phone companies would block sufficiently vexatious users. This is true. You are attempting to deny it by deflection. I guess you have a bit of a reality problem.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
After recent headlines I fail to see why anyone with a brain would be using facebook?
Give advertisements pretty much by definition try to manipulate people into doing something they wouldnâ(TM)t do otherwise to their financial detriment, I assume this means all commercial advertisement is banned on the platform?
If you try and post or message that link, Facebook gives this error:
You can't post this because it has a blocked link
The content or the page you're trying to share includes a link that our security systems detected to be unsafe:
Which is, of course, nonsense.
So if Facebook runs an ad that tricks me into voting against my own financial interest, or for politicians who profit from their offices, will the ads be banned?
More honest politicians, and more money in my pocket? Seems like a good deal.
Let us access your contacts, personal address, personal details, medical history and first born son.
"Endangering someone financially, not just physically, or tricking them to earn a profit are now also strictly prohibited"
They must need to ban a lot of things, including themselves.
The thing is that people who lost money due to scams spread through social networks could start sue the (juicy massively rich) networks' owners on the ground that they facilitated the scam spreading.
Until recently, most of the internet giants managed to get considered as a sort of utility company.
They shouldn't be liable of anything said on their platform. They are not responsible for what *other people* say, they are only here to provide a neutral platform.
(The same way you wouldn't accuse a power company to have provided electricity to the computer of a scam runner. They just provide the power, they aren't responsible for what people plug into it).
The thing is the situation has slowly started to change.
Search engine forced to remove content due to various legislation (DCMA, right-to-forget, etc.)
More recently Facebook getting under close scrutiny for having potentially had an influence on recent US election through spreading of falsified information.
In this context the big actors are starting to get afraid of potential lawsuits.
They don't want to get sued and potentially found liable for monetary loss due to scam spread through their platform, they want to cover their financial asses against this : censoring is an cheap easy tool to do it.
And to the hell if that happens to completely trample the free speech of sizable chunk of online people : money rules.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Thank you, Zuck. I guess you'll finally be shutting down the cancer that is Facebook?
"Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own. The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional do-gooders, who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means." - Isabel Patterson, The God of the Machine
I call bullshit. Are they really going to ban Trump from facebook ?
Aren't ads just messaging designed to trick people into making bad financial decisions?
NM
you can't Rick-roll people any more?
Facebook has outlawed tricking and bilking people? Does that mean Facebook is going to shut itself down? Because tricking people, (into giving up valuable information about themselves, and then profiting OFF that information,) is kind of their thing. It's what makes Facebook their money. Without that, Facebook will wither and die... (and good riddance too)!
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.